Monday, July 17, 2017

(UK) To the northwest of the city of Birmingham is an area known as the ‘Black Country’.

The name derives from its industrial heritage and dates from the 1840s. The name is believed to come from the soot from the heavy industries that covered the area. Why in 1832, Queen Victoria wrote in her diary during a visit:

"The men, women (sic), children, country and houses are all black... but I cannot by any description give an idea of its strange and extraordinary appearance. The country is very desolate everywhere; there are coals about and the grass is quite blasted and black. I just now see an extraordinary building flaming with fire."

The people from region are proud of their heritage and have no problem telling you they are from the ‘Black Country’. In fact so proud, they held a competition for a flag to represent the area, and a 14 year-old girl won with this entry.

Based on a quote made in 1862 by Elihu Burritt, the American Consul in Birmingham.
He described the region as “black by day and red by night” — a result of the local
furnaces giving out smoke and grime during the day and glowing by night. The flag
background is therefore both black and red, with the chains showing a typical product
manufactured in the area. The central white area represents the glass cone, a symbol
of the region's glass-making heritage since 1790.

Well, new Wolverhampton MP Eleanor Smith took one look at the flag and claimed it was racist – she had ‘serious concerns’ over the connotations of the flag, adding it failed to represent the multi-cultural communities in the region. Her concerns centre around the use of the chains on the flag – symbolising the chain making industry – which she feels have connotations to do with slavery.

Well, that didn’t go down well with the Black Country crowd, and 26,000 votes on an online poll by the local newspaper has resulted in a rebuttal that she didn’t say it was racist and that the reason she didn’t appear with other MPs for a photo shoot was due to her being busy.

Why do so many political agitators find racism everywhere they look? Oh, and by the way, the chains for the Titanic were made in the Black Country.